
The Federal Ministry of Health and the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) have restated commitment to sustaining their partnership on emergencies to ensure efficient rescue of crash victims during emergencies. This was consequent upon the meeting between the Minister of State, Health and the Corps Marshal of the FRSC, Boboye Oyeyemi held at the Conference Hall of the Ministry of Health at the Federal Secretariat Abuja on Friday.
In a press release by Bisi Kazeem, Head, Media Relations and Strategy, FRSC, the Minister of State, Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire acknowledged the central role that FRSC plays in handling emergencies, saying the Ministry is committed to sustaining the existing partnership between the two organisations in order to enhance the capability of the personnel who provide the services. He further stated that in all circumstances, the use of roads from the scenes of the emergencies to the nearest health facilities cannot be ruled out, thus making FRSC a strategic partner in any plan for emergencies.
“This is the beginning of a new effort in this era of change to plan on how to tackle the challenges emanating from the various disasters. We believe that the partnership will be of great service to the generality of the people,” he stated.
Speaking further, Dr Osagie stressed that the partnership between the Health Ministry and the FRSC will ensure that succour gets to victims of disasters promptly and that the Ministry will readily support the Corps in all its programmes aimed at reducing crashes and creating safer road environment. He particularly commended the FRSC for introducing the speed limiting devices in vehicles and gave assurances that his Ministry will support the policy in the interest road users, saying speed has been identified as a major cause of road traffic crashes.
The Minister of state also pointed out the importance of observing road safety rules and regulations to avoid crashes, warning drivers to avoid operating under the influence of alcohol and drugs as doing so cause great risk to their lives. He also spoke against driving non road worthy vehicles and enjoined driver’s licence issuing authorities to always ensure the competence of drivers before issuing them licences.
Dr Osagie specifically pointed out that drivers conveying hazardous materials should be given specialist training and retraining programmes at intervals, while audit report of crashes should be published for people to take precautions against re-occurrence.
While commending the FRSC for setting up road side clinics, ambulance points and zebras at some strategic locations across the country for prompt response to crash victims, the Minister assured that he would undertake a visit to some of the facilities to determine the level of partnership and assistance that those centres could enjoy from the Ministry. He however called for stronger collaboration between the facilities and the Zonal Blood Transfusion centres in the interest of crash victims that might require immediate blood infusion.
The Minister further stated that based on the need to give new direction to issues of emergency management in the country for proper coordination of medical facilities, the Ministry would call a stakeholders’ meeting where every stakeholder would have the opportunity of making inputs in finding the way forward.
Earlier in his address, the Corps Marshal thanked the Minster for his personal commitment to the safety and wellbeing of crash victims as evidenced by the interest he has shown in resuscitating the existing partnership and the support he declared to the speed limiting devices to tackle the menace of speed induced crashes. While assuring the Ministry of the FRSC’s readiness to work for efficient emergency plans that could render prompt post crash assistance to victims, Oyeyemi enumerated the measures taken by the FRSC to counter the menace of road traffic crashes, especially those arising from speed violation.
He informed the Minister that as part of the FRSC’s support to the campaign against polio, FRSC teams nationwide have been directed to collaborate with the officials of the Ministry who administer the drugs to children on transit. This he said has increased the number of children having access to the polio immunisation pointing out that those on transit could have missed the opportunity without such intervention and promised to sustain the support.
The Corps Marshal however expressed dismay at the attitude of some hospitals who are in the habit of rejecting rescued victims on the basis that the FRSC personnel who bring such casualties to the Hospital must pay for card or deposit money for treatment. This he said is a great setback to the rescue activities of the FRSC, as members of the Corps don’t normally carry money with them on patrol. He therefore appealed to the Ministry of Health to work out a system of Trust Fund that could be used for such emergency cases pending when the victim recovers or the relations turn up, without denying them the needed medical care for lack of deposit.
The Corps Marshal further informed the Minister that as part of the strategies put in place by the FRSC to ensure that first aid treatment given to crash victims meet the medical standards, some selected members of the communities that have been identified to be crash-prone were given special training and kitted with medications with the support of the Road Safety Partnership. He called on the Minister to see how the initiative could be further strengthened.
Part of the resolutions reached at the end of the meeting was the need to construct Helipads in some Teaching Hospitals and Medical Centres for easy evacuation of crash victims transported through air ambulances; need for relevant law enforcement agencies to check health conditions of the drivers especially their eye sight and the need to involve the state governments in the policy on the speed limiters bearing in mind that some of the states maintain fleet of vehicles for commercial transportation.
The Corps Marshal was accompanied on the visit by some principal officers of the FRSC including the Deputy Corps Marshall in charge of Technical Services and Special Duties, the Assistant Corps Marshal in charge of Policy, Research Statistics as well as the Special Assistant to the Corps Marshal among others.